"The 'Projecting' series happened organically, as all my work does. Most of the time, I feel like the camera is using me instead of the other way around," says cocktail guru and artist Samir Osman, who will be in Asheville Feb. 9-11.

A huge thank you to Asheville for the warm welcome and all the love last night at the gallery opening. To be embraced by a community so vibrant and supportive has been beyond amazing, and I feel like I'm already part of the family after only two days.

For those of you that didn't make it, or might be coming through town anytime soon, please stop by 5 Walnut St to check it out!

If you are in town and want to become part of the project and get prints of yourself I have some spots left for today's live shoot at Soveriegn Remedies. I'll be there all day and most of the night. I won't leave until everyone who wants to has a chance to be shot.

It seems that for some people the idea of compassion entails a complete disregard for or even a sacrifice of their own interests. This is not the case. In fact, you first of all have to have a wish to be happy yourself – if you don’t love yourself like that, how can you love others?﻿

I just had the most inspiring, amazing, and perspective gut punching shoot to date. I know I said I wasn't going to share anymore of the series until it was in galleries, but this is just too good to keep under wraps. You may want to get a box of tissues before you read further.

"J" was diagnosed with cancer for the first time at 14. He had a walnut sized tumor on his knee. At that time they normally would've amputated his leg, but he was lucky enough to be accepted for a new treatment. It caused major damage to his knee, now completely artificial, and eventually had to be rebuilt again. His sports career was over. About a year or so later it came back, this time in his lungs. He went through excruciating amounts of treatments, chemo, radiation, the whole gamut. Finally after struggling and being sick from the treatment through his entire teen years he gave up. He told them he couldn't take anymore, and that he was ready to die. They removed all the tumors they could, and he quit his therapy. The doctors told him he had a year at best to live. He was 17. Then he met the love of his life, and everything changed. He started getting better, and went into full remission. They are still married today, nearly 30 years later, and despite his body being littered with scars from myriad experimental surgeries, he is in perfect health and they are two of the happiest, healthiest, and most beautiful people you could ever know, with children just like them to boot.

The old days were fun, and sure that guy will be missed by some, but gladly those days are over. The guy you all call(ed) Woodpile is no more, and the kind of shenanigans he was known for have been thrown in the fire, the wood reduced to ashes, the ashes not even smoldering anymore. I had to turn my back on him, and that way of life.

I'm still fun. I'm even more fun now, just in a very different way. But I've dedicated my new life as a lone wolf to helping others and making art that changes people's perceptions, both of themselves and of society's soul crushing doling out of shame, guilt, and degradation. Every person has so much beauty and love in them, and I've made it my life's work to do any and everything I can to help them find it and love and accept themselves for who and what they are, not who they are told they are "supposed" to be.